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PHP RFC: Static "use function"
- Version: 0.1
- Date: 2016-01-26
- Author: Rasmus Schultz, rasmus@mindplay.dk
- Status: Draft
- First Published at: http://wiki.php.net/rfc/use-static-function
Introduction
This RFC proposes an extension to the use function statement, providing a means of aliasing public static functions from classes as file-local functions.
At present, functions cannot be autoloaded - as a consequence, developers have been forced to either preload all functions (not knowing if they get called or not) - or put them in (abstract) classes as public static functions (the more popular approach in Composer packages) and qualify every call with a class-name (or alias.)
While function autoloading has been proposed to address this issue, this RFC has been stalled several times due to problems with name-resolution, to which no good solution has been proposed.
This RFC offers an arguably much simpler solution to the problem, by allowing the use of classes as “pseudo-namespaces”, which would immediately work with existing libraries of public static functions, and additionally would work with Composer (or any auto-loader) as-is.
Furthermore, existing classes with public static functions would be immediately supported without modification - e.g. without having to port all existing legacy code from public static to flat functions.
Proposal
This RFC proposes the following extensions to the “use function” statement.
Assume for the following examples a class as follows:
TODO
Backward Incompatible Changes
None.
Proposed PHP Version(s)
Next PHP 7.x.
RFC Impact
On ''call_user_func''
TBD
To ''Reflection''
TBD
To SAPIs
None.
To Existing Extensions
TBD
To Opcache
TBD
Future Scope
TBD
Proposed Voting Choices
TBD
Patches and Tests
None yet.
Implementation
None yet.
References
TODO
Rejected Features
TODO